Bike-Sharing in Wuhan Cut Carbon Emissions by 3,000 Tons in Six Months

Zhang Xia

DATE : Sep 15 2017/SOURCE : Yicai

Bike-Sharing in Wuhan Cut Carbon Emissions by 3,000 Tons in Six Months

(Yicai Global) Sept. 15 -- The combination of rail transit and shared bikes is becoming a daily choice for citizens in Wuhan, the capital of China's central Hubei province. Residents ride an average of 1.7 kilometers a day and have cut over 3,000 tons of carbon emissions in half a year.

Since arriving in Wuhan last December, Mobike has already put more than 200,000 bikes on the city streets, covering all of its bus stops. About 86 percent of users in the area ride less than three kilometers, state-owned news agency Xinhua reported on Sept. 14.

The combination of rail and bike is a big hit in the morning and evening rush hours on working days, said Cao Yuan, founder of CarbonBob. During rush hour, there can be as many as 100,000 people riding motorbikes across the city.

Shared bikes have reduced carbon emissions in the city by as much as 3,000 tons, Cao said. He estimates shared bikes' contribution to reducing carbon emissions every year could reach 2 percent of total emissions in the city's passenger transport sector, in line with the maximum number of shared bikes allowed in the city.

CarbonBob is a low carbon demonstration project in Wuhan city, formed by several of Hubei's provincial departments. It encourages citizens to take public transport, ride shared bikes, drive new-energy vehicles or simply walk, and issues carbon scores to residents. The platform mainly focuses on low carbon lifestyles to reduce resource consumption and pollution, and push the low-carbon mindset in to citizens' everyday lives.